DENVER, March 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield's
Promoting Healthcare Quality (PHQ) program, which the company launched in
2003, began with a basic assumption: If hospitals were offered incentives
that would enable them to improve quality outcomes and meet certain
performance standards, the quality and safety of care for patients would
improve. Now in its fifth year, hard evidence is in place to support that
assumption.

Specifically:

-- Of the 19 hospitals participating in this voluntary program, the

overall average score increased from 81 to 92 percent.

-- Five of the hospitals increased their total scores by more than 20

percent

-- Five of the hospitals scored 100 percent in the most recent measurement

received smoking cessation advice - a significant increase from the 53

percent who received this advice during the first year of the program.

Anthem's PHQ program came about as the result of the 2000 publication
of the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) ground-breaking report, "To Err is
Human " which cited as many as 98,000 deaths annually from medical errors
and called for a national effort to make health care safer. Anthem was the
first health benefits company in the state to introduce this kind of
program and has since been recognized as a leader in expanding
reimbursement for clinical excellence and improved medical outcomes, rather
than limiting it only to delivery of medical services.

PHQ offers hospitals incentives, including financial, for achieving
measurable improvements in the areas of patient safety and health outcomes,
including such measures as pneumococcal vaccination rate, provision of
aspirin and beta blockers for patients suffering a heart attack,
computerized physician order entry systems and ICU staffing. Success is
measured by assigning values for compliance with recommended patient safety
standards, implementation of systems and processes to meet these standards,
and improvements in clinical outcomes.

"Good relationships with participating hospitals are at the core of
PHQ's success," said Mike Ramseier, VP, Health Care Management, Anthem Blue
Cross and Blue Shield. "Working collaboratively, we have been able to
achieve improvement in several areas. This means better, safer care for
every patient who receives medical care at these institutions. That's
something we all can be proud of."

"Anthem and PHQ participating hospitals both win as a result of being a
part of the program," said Donna Kusuda, VP Quality and Patient Safety,
HCA- HealthONE. "While health care providers strive to do the right thing
for their patients, putting new systems and processes in place that can
enable providers to deliver safer, higher quality services can be
challenging. PHQ helps accelerate the timeline for achieving key patient
quality and safety goals."

About Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Colorado

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Colorado is a subsidiary of
WellPoint, Inc. (NYSE: WLP). WellPoint's mission is to improve the lives of
the people it serves and the health of its communities. WellPoint, Inc. is
the largest health benefits company in terms of commercial membership in
the United States. Through its nationwide networks, the company delivers a
number of leading health benefit solutions through a broad portfolio of
integrated health care plans and related services, along with a wide range
of specialty products such as life and disability insurance benefits,
pharmacy benefit management, dental, vision, behavioral health benefit
services, as well as long term care insurance and flexible spending
accounts. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, WellPoint is an
independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and
serves its members as the Blue Cross licensee for California; the Blue
Cross and Blue Shield licensee for Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana,
Kentucky, Maine, Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area),
Nevada, New Hampshire, New York (as Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield in 10 New
York City metropolitan and surrounding counties and as Empire Blue Cross or
Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield in selected upstate counties only), Ohio,
Virginia (excluding the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.),
Wisconsin; and through UniCare. Additional information about WellPoint is
available at http://www.wellpoint.com.

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